Random Musings and Fill in the Blanks...

I'm doing both Fill in the Blank Friday and Random Musings today.

1. My greatest strength is.....YIKES.  I'm occasionally good at crafts, basic math, and planning vacations and parties.  At work I'm sometimes able to act more calmly in a crisis or drama than others. 
2. My greatest weakness....being overly sarcastic, baking, public speaking, my messiness, keeping plants alive, etc.
3. People always compliment me on....geez, I'm not sure.  I will go with recent compliments.  My husband told me my arms looked more toned (I think it was an optical illusion).  My mom and dad said I'm a wonderful daughter for taking care of their dog when they are out of town.  And my sister told me that I was a good mentor. Yeah, go me.
4. If you found me procrastinating I would most likely be doing some sort of Internetting or watching old TV shows on Netflix streaming.
5. The most cozy place in all the world is my bed and the basement sectional with lots of blankets and Hobie and B.
6. Something new that I tried recently was baking blondies.  This first batch totally failed.  The second batch was edible.
7. This weekend I would like to watch the Hunger Games, finish some wine charm orders, run approximately 6 miles (over 2 days), take 2 naps, do some light cleaning, and con my husband into buying me a decent meal or two.

And I also have a couple of Random Musings....

I have been running steadily for the past 3-4 months.  I am sometimes sore now when I run a longer distance but usually not too bad.  On Monday I got out of bed and I could barely walk.  I hadn't gone on any long runs in the past few days so I was confused.  Then I realized my thighs were burning in pain from cleaning out the fridge.  I cleaned the fridge for over an hour on Sunday and most of the time I was in this weird squatting position which apparently my body is not used to.  Note to self-cleaning bad, running ok.  Also do more squats to strengthen thighs.

The danger of oranges-I have been eating a lot of oranges recently.  Every time I try to peel them, I end up hurting myself.  I dig my nail in too far into the peel and it does something bad to my finger and then orange juice gets in there and burns me.  I've also shot myself in the eye with OJ a few times.  What is wrong with me?  How should I be peeling oranges?

I think Hobie inherited seasonal allergies from me.  He sneezed like 20 times in a row last night.  Poor little guy.  He should be following my plan of staying inside for the next few weeks.
 
That is all.  I'm very very glad it's Friday and I hope everyone else is too.
 
Happy Weekending!

Last Week....and I'm Getting Sporty

Last week was a strange week for a lot of reasons....

On Monday, I suddenly decided to be passionate about basketball and offered to write a guest post on a sports blog.  Side Notes-I actually wrote this last week before Duke lost (it shocked me too).  I had them going much further in my bracket.  And I hope all the injured UNC players fully recover.  But now you should totally check out my pro-NC State basketball blog post on From the Sidelines.  

On Wednesday I got a computer virus at (one of my least favorite things ever).  It has now been repaired.

On Thursday I got into a car accident.  It was one of the scariest experiences of my life.  But fortunately no one was severely injured.  Although there were stitches and an ambulance (not for me).  The police  and 10 witnesses confirmed to me that it was not my fault.  My husband is excellent at coming to my rescue quickly (as well as one of my co-workers).  And apparently my reaction to traumatic events is to spray cry hysterically.

On Friday some crazy basketball went down and I actually cared about it....my Alma mater, NC State (an 11 seed) beat a 6 seed in the NCAA tournament (and Duke lost, pretty crazy). 

On Saturday I ran (with a slight bit of walking thrown in) 5.2 miles in a St. Patrick's Day Beerun while suffering from some serious pollen allergies.

Hopefully the strangest thing to happen this week is that NC State beats a #2 seed in basketball.

How was your week? 
And again go ahead and check out my guest blog post at From the Sidelines.  You will love it.

Super Foods....Smoothies and Spinach Salads

After running this weekend, I decided to make some healthy lunch/snack items to eat so I will get strong and awesome.

Ever since my first job as a smoothie maker at Creative Juices when I was 16, I have been obsessed with smoothies.  There is an art to it.  I recently decided that buying frozen fruit is expensive.  So instead I have been buying a can of crushed pineapple and then freezing it in individual sandwich bags to use in my smoothies.  It works very well and since the pineapple is crushed, you don't get big chunks in your smoothie.  The key to smoothie making is making sure you have blended everything together perfectly.  Feel free to take the blender cup off the blender and shake it around if things aren't blending properly.  Chunks are bad.  Your smoothie is done blending when your smoothie spins around in a circle that dips into the middle (while the blender is still going).  Like the bottom of the blender is sucking down your smoothie in a circular motion.  You will know it when you see it.  Trust me.  OK onward.

Women's Health Smoothie....
-1 small container of vanilla yogurt (6-8 oz)
-a splash of cranberry juice (or any juice really)
-1/3 of a frozen banana
-1/5 of a can of crushed pineapple (frozen in little plastic baggies, throw away bag though, don't blend)

Blend it up until it's smooth (see above) and drink it out of a beer glass (if you want to and you have a bunch of beer glasses).  Good stuff.

Then I decided to make a spinach quinoa salad.  Spinach is a super food and all.  The key to this salad is this......

Jarred grilled veggies.  You can get these at Harris Teeter (in a smaller jar, near the canned vegetables, might be roasted instead of grilled) or at Costco in this giant jar that I have.  This jar has zucchini, red peppers, eggplant and artichokes in a vinegar and oil mix.

Power Salad

-cooked quinoa

-jarred grilled veggies

-balsamic vinaigrette (whisk canola or olive oil, a spoonful of mustard, a spoonful of honey, and some balsamic vinegar together-just add stuff until you like the taste and consistency or just mix any oil and vinegar together to get some sort of dressing to mix in)

-bag of baby spinach

Mix the cooked quinoa with some of the chopped veggies (add in some of the oil from the jar of vegetables for extra flavor) and then add some vinaigrette.  Then get a large bowl of baby spinach and add some of the quinoa mixture to the top.  Mix it so that the spinach gets coated with the quinoa vinaigrette mix.  Good stuff.

If you make and eat these two recipes you will grow up to be healthy and strong.  Probably.  Maybe. 

Do you like spinach salads and smoothies?

What do you eat that makes you feel healthy?

Pinteresting-The Craft Version and The Pinterest Challenge

Update-I originally posted this a few weeks ago but I'm re-posting it today for the Young House Love/Bower Power Pinterest Challenge. 

A few weeks ago I decided to 'pinter' some art work.  I made this picture one night while my husband was watching some sort of sport downstairs.  He never even saw me in action.

I got the idea for this from here.  Here is where I pinned it.  Essentially you just paint or draw branches with brown marker or paint and then paint circles on the branches as leaves.  I used some old acrylic paint I had lying around.

I was not 100% happy with this when I finished.  Once I put it in the frame, I liked it better (fun fact-you can make most bad art look decent by framing it).  I like how it looks from far away but not so much from up close.  Fortunately, I usually only look at it from far away.  So for now, it's a keeper.  I can always re-frame something else when I get sick of it.

The second thing I made didn't come from a specific pin.  I had seen a lot of people use paint sample chips (cards from Lowe's, Home Depot) to make art work.  So I thought I'd give it a try.  After some trial and error I went with these hearts in varying shades of blue which I taped onto a piece of white paper.  Then I framed them in this dollar store frame. 

So if I end up hating it in a few weeks there will be no big monetary loss.  (Free paint chips+ $1 frame=$1).

Here's how it looks all together.

Have you pintered any art for your house?

UPDATE 2-So I'm actually still liking my tree painting.  It's growing on me, so I think it will stay up there for awhile.  Now I need to re-pinter some art for the basement since my first attempt was a failure.  You can check that one out here.

Random Musings Friday...

Ok.  I kept track of my deepest thoughts this week to play along with Shana's Random Musings Friday.  So here you go....

This week I decided that I need more breaks at work.  Since I don't smoke, I have decided to start taking more tea breaks.  This involves making tea and drinking it while I work.  With the added health benefits of tea, it seems like a WIN WIN idea.

While I was getting ready for work on Monday, I noticed that the collar of my shirt was sticking up in a weird way.  Rather than go downstairs and iron it I decided to attempt to use my hair straightener to flatten it down.  It actually worked and didn't set my shirt on fire.  (I have a weak hair straightener, not one of those crazy powerful ones so I don't really recommend this as a method of normal ironing).

The bar/restaurant where I play weekly trivia on Tuesday nights raised the stakes this week by offering the team with the best/funniest team name a free order of cheddar bacon tots at half time.  As soon as they announced the winner and brought out the tots, 3 other teams (including us) ordered a plate of tots.  So I feel like this was a really good marketing strategy to increase tot sales.  (Our team name was 'Rush Limbaugh Approves of Snooki's Smushes'  or something like that.  It's supposed to be topical.  We did not win though.  Not our best work.  Should have gone Kirk Cameron or St Patrick's Day themed).

While eating the aforementioned tots, we had a lengthy discussion about fitness and weight loss plans that work best.  It was ironic.  The tots had at least a whole bag of shredded cheese on them.

Last weekend when I was slow jogging outside I had that song "because the night belongs to lovers" in my head the whole time.  Like on mental repeat.  I went ahead and found my old school semi-giant iPod the next day.  I'm considering buying one of those little baby iPods but I'm afraid I might lose it.  Thoughts?

You are welcome for this exciting insight into my brain.
Have a great weekend!

Weekendin'...

I have had a couple busy weekends and I kept forgetting to upload the photos so my blogging has been slack lately.  I will give you a recap in pictures.

What happens when someone randomly asks you if you have read the Harry Potter books?  In some cases it means you get volunteered to dress up as a Wizard to teach spells at a kid's birthday party.  That is what happened to B a few weeks ago.  I was extremely nervous about this but B ended up being amazing and the kids really like him.  He was quick on his feet and a great improviser.  I am now his booking agent if anyone is in the market for some children's bday party entertainment.

It was Shanzles big 31st birthday a week ago so I made her these cupcakes in the shape of an 'S' (sort of).

Cupcakes are cool.  But you know what people are really in to?  Ice cream sundae bars.  For real.  Put out some ice cream, chocolate sauce, cherries and of course whipped cream and people get excited.

See that excitement.

My friend Rachel flew in from New York to meet Beezus5's new baby.  KMU actually met a lot of new people at Shanzles' birthday party.

I'm thinking of writing the pilot for a new buddy sitcom...'2 Men, a Poodle and a Baby'.  Yeah?  Would you watch?

This past weekend I spent a lot of time making these guys and listening to some hot pop music on my iPad.

So that was my past few weekends. 

Did you do anything exciting?